This invention has to do with disk drive suspensions, more particularly with flexure and conductor assemblies for disk drive suspensions, and especially with the modification of flexure stiffness by fixing a flexible conductor having a separate stiffness thereto. Electrical connection and modification of the stiffness properties of the flexure are thus both obtained from a single arrangement of components.
The invention enables the use of very thin flexures having improved performance parameters. In a specific aspect, the invention provides disk drive suspensions and flexures therein in which the spring constant is the sum of the inherent spring constant in a very thin flexure and the greater spring constant of a conductor laminate secured to the flexure. In a further aspect, the invention provides for reduction in conductor induced biases and certain bimetallic bending effects observed in disk drive suspensions by routing of the conductor as a laminate circumjacently of the flexure and supporting it at multiple locations, while attaching the laminate at a selected flexure locus where the resulting bias is predictable and parallel to the flexure spring.